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Thighpaulsandra, "Rape Scene"
The Gomco Clamp is a special medical device created to facilitate the circumcision of infant boys, a bell-shaped device over which the shaft skin of the penis is stretched before a circular incision is made. On the first track of Thighpaulsandra's new album, tastefully entitled Rape Scene, the eccentric Welshman hints at a joyful misuse of this medical device, and the mind reels at the sadomasochistic possibilities inherent in such a suggestion.
I shouldn't be surprised at yet more perversion coming out of Tim Lewis' vividly transgressive imagination, and yet this image made me shudder. Rape Scene is about the pleasures of an impromptu homosexual menage a trois — Thighpaulsandra, Martin Schellard and Siôn Orgon — who together create three lengthy in-studio improvisations which comprise the album. Three seems to be the numerical key to the album — three musicians, three tracks, and a photograph of three "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" toilets on the cover artwork. On Rape Scene, "he who rides astride the tundra in reindeer-skin thigh-length boots" treats the listener to 45 minutes of synthesizer abuse, psychedelic indulgence and analog chaos. This is deconstructed progressive rock in its most undisciplined form. At times its the sound of a circlejerk; Thighps has found a button on his synthesizer that feels good when he presses it, so he just keeps on pressing it again and again as Martin Schellard jams senselessly to a Steve Howe tune in his head and Siôn Orgon struggles to glue everything together with shambolic percussion. By their nature these three tracks are less focused than on Thighpaulsandra's previous albums and EPs, but when they gel, as in the middle section of "The Busy Jew," the effect is positively riveting. Like getting a peak inside the Inner Space studio where Can produced masterful albums from weeks of improvisation, Thighpaulsandra's merry band of perverts make beautiful noise out of the dynamic of group vs. individual thought. The songs teeter precariously between areas of dissonance, each member pursuing their own phantoms, and moments of perfect synergism, leading to a series of brilliant group climaxes. "His Lavish Showroom" starts off like a whimsical oriental symphony played on the bridge of the Enterprise, eventually exploding into a chaotic mess of buzzsaw guitar licks, jagged electronic arpeggiations and tubular bells. On the aforementioned "The Busy Jew," Schellard busies himself with high-lonesome slide-guitar, while Thighpaulsandra creates a dense mattress of thick, gooey electronics, and Siôn Orgon pushes the momentum forward with propulsive rhythms. It pays off at about the five-minute mark, transforming into a gloriously funky Kraut groove with the Welshman barking out stream-of-consciousness lyrical couplets about weeping vaginas and garden trestles. I seriously doubt I'll hear anything as joyously unrestrained and original as Rape Scene going under the heading of "improv" for the rest of the year.
